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Goodbye worlds, hello replacement worlds??

xparasite9xparasite9
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edited May 2019 in Suggestions, Feedback, and Requests
http://maplestory.nexon.net/news/48198/maple-memo-v204-status-update-may-17
One of the other considerations we needed to make was that for this world merge, we wanted to not just create bigger alliances, but to essentially merge alliance worlds so that each world will become one single world.

For this world merge, we plan to merge the following alliances into two new worlds:

New World #1

Broa
Khani
Galicia
Renegades
Arcania
Zenith
El Nido
Demethos

New World #2

Windia
Mardia
Yellonde
Bellocan
Chaos
Kradia
Nova

Due to some of the considerations I will explain below, we plan to increase the max character count from 46 to 50 during the update later this year once we merge the worlds.

When the world merge update occurs, we will merge all characters from each world within each alliance into their respective new world. The character selection screen will display up to 50 characters, so for those few players who have a large amount of characters in multiple worlds within the same alliance, they will need to select which of their 50 characters they would like to display initially within the character selection screen. The 50 characters they choose will be displayed in the character selection screen and can be accessed normally, while their excess characters will be temporarily inaccessible. After these players remove some characters from their character selection screen, they will be able to use this newly added menu again in order to select characters again to replace the ones they removed.

We plan to offer this menu initially to players so that they can choose which characters to display, however this menu will only be accessible for about 6 months. After this time, these impacted players will still only have access to up to 50 characters within their account, but the excess characters will be added to their character selection screen once these players start removing characters from the 50 that are displayed.

Hey I understand that barren servers aren't good for business since it can actually turn people away or encourage new players to make their characters in the already crowded Bera but could you maybe find a solution that doesn't involve doing this horrible thing that removes the names of worlds we've known for nine ±3 years and will force some of us to delete dozens of characters?

Personal anecdote here, I've been playing since 2008 and I specifically chose Windia based on name recognition alone. I thought it was really neat how a server coincidentally shared a name with a kingdom in the Breath of Fire series, and quite a few of players I met in the past had a similar motivation for selecting that world. My deep personal connection to just even the name of Windia was the strongest of the reasons why I didn't jump ship to Bera with everyone else in the world transfer event that decimated populations via mass exodus. I might be okay with the new World taking the name of Windia but it's also possible that others have their own personal attachments to the names of their own home servers, so it would probably be less painful to just expand the scope of the alliances instead of creating two replacement worlds.

MOREOVER forcing players to prioritize which characters (many which might have super rare untradeable items) they care the most about within a certain timeline and thereafter be forced out of accessing the rest, except at the cost of deleting the ones that they've already assessed a higher value to, is quite cruel. It's also unjustly discriminatory against people (and let's not avoid the bitter truth of the criminal justice system: they are often People of Color) that are currently serving a sentence of incarceration that would last longer than this grace period, and would be unable to sort their characters in such priority.

Again, I do understand that low server populations is a problem from many aspects and a solution has probably been long overdue. But replacing all the existing low-population worlds with 2 new ones, each with a capacity of only 50 characters, is not a good solution.

Comments

  • DaxterbeerDaxterbeer
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    edited May 2019
    Back then on the world merge thread, I suggested that they do an alliance for people who have extra characters so minimize possible character loss and to focus on bringing populations together. Now I going around deleting characters to make room for this change.

    Another worry I have is monster collection and storage. Do we have to start expanding a new inventory? Do we have to recollect all the monsters in monster collection we did (I had 666 mobs registered and it would be a pain to start that all over.)
  • xAiolosxAiolos
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    edited May 2019
    World Merge? Absolutelly awesome... hold on, where's Luna? We do not exist or sth?
  • AggraphineAggraphine
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    edited May 2019
    xAiolos wrote: »
    World Merge? Absolutelly awesome... hold on, where's Luna? We do not exist or sth?

    The EU side has only luna and reboot. You can't merge non-reboot with reboot, so there's nothing for you to actually merge with. This is a merge for the NA side.

    As for OP + dax + others: you'd better just get used to it. Consolidate your crap down to 50 characters or fewer. Your stockpiling of mules on alliance worlds should not stand in the way of full world merges. This will be a long-term benefit to the game's overall health. It's been a long time coming, and while I don't wholly agree with their current plan, it's an improvement over the current state of affairs. Plus, let's be real, you don't need six maxed worlds worth of characters, and you're going to tangibly lose nothing for their loss.
  • HHG1HHG1
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    edited May 2019
    MSEA already did this: http://www.maplesea.com/news/view/v185_draco/
    I'm assuming it'll work exactly the same for us with storage, monster collection, etc etc.
    I'm personally all for it. The sheer amount of servers on the selection screen is overwhelming to new players and it's unclear that some most are allianced.
    Yes, it's unfortunate that the "OG" names will be changed, but we'll at least get a chance to vote on a new one.
  • xparasite9xparasite9
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    edited May 2019
    Aggraphine wrote: »
    Plus, let's be real, you don't need six maxed worlds worth of characters, and you're going to tangibly lose nothing for their loss.
    We could expand that argument and say that no one needs to play MapleStory.

    Anyone who has 45 characters in their main world and even just six characters in the other worlds that are going to be merged in will be forced to delete one, and won't be able to make a new character for any of the new classes that come out, without first deleting yet another character as well.
  • HHG1HHG1
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    edited May 2019
    xparasite9 wrote: »
    It's also unjustly discriminatory against people (and let's not avoid the bitter truth of the criminal justice system: they are often People of Color) that are currently serving a sentence of incarceration that would last longer than this grace period, and would be unable to sort their characters in such priority.

    7L7oQtU.png
    You could've just said people on break or in the army or whatever but you went for bLaCk PeOpLe iN jAiL.
    But also I'm willing to bet people that are just getting out of jail after 6+ months have several other things on their list of priorities that are above whether some of their MapleStory mules are temporarily inaccessible or not.
    PirateIzzyAggraphine
  • xparasite9xparasite9
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    edited May 2019
    HHG1 wrote: »
    You could've just said people on break or in the army or whatever but you went for bLaCk PeOpLe iN jAiL.

    because "people on break" or deployed active duty are not "by default" marginalized. This is putting yet another undue hardship upon people who are already marginalized by a system that's built up to oppress PoC; a system that among a laundry list of wrongs assigns lengthier sentences to PoC even for similar crimes. MapleStory is a very accessible game if you're not obsessed with getting cosmetic items in Reboot, or even in regular servers now that thanks to easily-gotten MCCs from many sources, the gap between the whales and the free players is barely significant except in the most endgame of endgame content. F2P MMOs are a godsend to people who don't have wiggle room in their budgets for subscription MMOs. so speaking about how this can affect the most marginalized, which disproportionately are PoC, is not out of the question.
  • TheHoATheHoA
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    edited May 2019
    Will there FINALLY be a world transfer? I've been waiting to get my stuff out of Scania and Bera for YEARS.
  • xparasite9xparasite9
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    edited May 2019
    TheHoA wrote: »
    Will there FINALLY be a world transfer? I've been waiting to get my stuff out of Scania and Bera for YEARS.

    I don't think so. The only thing announced was replacing 15 worlds with an equivalent two, to leave a total of four: Scania and Bera, and the two yet-to-be-named.
  • SumiSumi
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    edited May 2019
    I have max chars in windia and some chars in other world.... Def not gonna be happy that i g2 pick my top 50 andnthe rest is gonna be gone...

    Besides reading this :
    Due to some of the considerations I will explain below, we plan to increase the max character count from 46 to 50 during the update later this year once we merge the worlds.

    I guess that means we wont get a free slot for pathfinder..... So i just g2 delete something again.... Wich is bs.... Just give us more slots
  • DaxterbeerDaxterbeer
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    edited May 2019
    If Nexon could increase the limit of the worlds to be 56 (multiple of 8,) it would be sweet.
    xparasite9 wrote: »
    TheHoA wrote: »
    Will there FINALLY be a world transfer? I've been waiting to get my stuff out of Scania and Bera for YEARS.

    I don't think so. The only thing announced was replacing 15 worlds with an equivalent two, to leave a total of four: Scania and Bera, and the two yet-to-be-named.


    I'm pretty sure Scania and Bera are still gonna be Scania and Bera.

    As with my characters, I am just going have to delete the level 1 ones and those that helped me with attendance all these years. I am still curious about the fate of my Monster Collection.
  • MageOfBattlesMageOfBattles
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    edited May 2019
    Honestly, it's incredible that people managed to turn this into a negative thing. They still gave out those medals dedicated to each server (EX: Chaos Pride), so you'll still have something to remember them by. But this is such an important change. Dead servers have been relying on botters to have a functioning economy, and with the several ban waves we've had recently, this hasn't been working. Who the flip cares about names when we're finally getting the world merge we've been asking for. Your commentary on the criminal justice system is completely out of place honestly, you're actually realistically expecting Nexon to accommodate those who are currently in prison? Get real.

    Aggra put it very concisely, there's not any benefit of having characters on more than one world in a server alliance, you're not really losing anything, and it definitely shouldn't be a reason as to why a server merge shouldn't happen. This is a change for the better.
    AggraphinePirateIzzy
  • HHG1HHG1
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    edited May 2019
    xparasite9 wrote: »
    HHG1 wrote: »
    You could've just said people on break or in the army or whatever but you went for bLaCk PeOpLe iN jAiL.

    because "people on break" or deployed active duty are not "by default" marginalized. This is putting yet another undue hardship upon people who are already marginalized by a system that's built up to oppress PoC; a system that among a laundry list of wrongs assigns lengthier sentences to PoC even for similar crimes. MapleStory is a very accessible game if you're not obsessed with getting cosmetic items in Reboot, or even in regular servers now that thanks to easily-gotten MCCs from many sources, the gap between the whales and the free players is barely significant except in the most endgame of endgame content. F2P MMOs are a godsend to people who don't have wiggle room in their budgets for subscription MMOs. so speaking about how this can affect the most marginalized, which disproportionately are PoC, is not out of the question.

    I don't understand what that has to do with anything though. Are you trying to make a case that Nexon is somehow racist if they don't extend the 6 month period to allow for ALL those black incarcerated MapleStory-players to sort their mules out or what? There's really no need to be so weirdly specific if you weren't making that claim, it throws the whole topic off and holds no real weight in an argument against any part of this merge.

    6 months is generous enough for something like this, and after that the extra menu can be considered obsolete because it's been so long since the merge happened. The characters aren't even automatically deleted afterwards, if it's anything like the MSEA merge then it'll be sorted by level. Chances are your most important characters will be within the upper 50 limit anyway.
    Aggraphine
  • AggraphineAggraphine
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    edited May 2019
    xparasite9 wrote: »
    It's also unjustly discriminatory against people (and let's not avoid the bitter truth of the criminal justice system: they are often People of Color) that are currently serving a sentence of incarceration that would last longer than this grace period, and would be unable to sort their characters in such priority.

    I cannot believe that you actually, legitimately said that. Not only saying it, but saying it in seriousness, without a hint of joking. I'm glad I skimmed half of your post and just flat-out ignored the rest last night. What does race have to do with literally any part of this? Not only race, but basically saying "this is a bad plan because black people in jail won't be able to sort their mules". I honestly have no words for this, at least none that will get past the word filter or mods. I just want you to know that I've been up since 8 AM, it's now 9:30 AM and this will likely be the stupidest thing I see all day. What are you trying to do, pull the race card to shame nexon into changing their plans so that it benefits you more? Because that's utterly asinine. James Downey said it best, OP, with regards to this excerpt.

    Also, I'd like to take a moment to point out what I believe to be a fair measure of hypocrisy: players have spent years asking, begging even, nexon to do something, anything, about dead or barren worlds. World merges, more alliances, anything to alleviate the problems caused by super-low server populations. And now that nexon is finally doing something, the very first response I see is "wait no not like that".

    This isn't Burger King, you can't have it your way.
    HHG1SlicedTime
  • OkhuraOkhura
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    edited May 2019
    Get back on topic please.
  • AggraphineAggraphine
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    edited May 2019
    Okhura wrote: »
    Get back on topic please.

    It is on topic. The excerpt in my post as well as HHG1's post is verbatim from the OP. Hard to be off-topic when you're picking apart a garbage argument the OP himself uses. And instead of walking it back after being called out on it, he doubles down and defends his statements.

    Personal opinion on the matter, it's still well within acceptable bounds. Let it ride for the time being, see if it stays at a low simmer or if it boils over.
    DarkPassenger
  • AKradianAKradian
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    edited May 2019
    "Attempted race-bait", Aggraphine? Seems to me you swallowed that bait, hook, line, and sinker, to go on that rant.
    I'll thank you all to avoid involving politics where they don't belong, and to avoid responding to obvious bait when you see it.

    On topic:
    We all know that people take extended breaks from MapleStory, of their own free will or otherwise. I don't know why Nexon decided to only offer the special character interface for 6 months. They might change their minds later, if they see the number of accounts with over 50 characters remains high. It's not an urgent or irreversible decision.

    As for the merged world names, as someone whose very forum and Discord identity is "A Kradian", I am obviously saddened that my world will be no more. But to be honest I'm more concerned about the possibility of losing my guild, alliance, buddy list, spouses, monster collection, legion, storage, cash storage, and whatever other "world-specific" features the people of EMS Kradia and Demethos lost when they became Luna.
  • HHG1HHG1
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    edited May 2019
    AKradian wrote: »
    We all know that people take extended breaks from MapleStory, of their own free will or otherwise. I don't know why Nexon decided to only offer the special character interface for 6 months. They might change their minds later, if they see the number of accounts with over 50 characters remains high. It's not an urgent or irreversible decision.
    See, that was the argument I thought OP would have gone for, or was trying to convey, but he insisted it was a bad move because of discrimination instead.
    I think keeping the special menu for longer than 6 months kinda defeats the purpose of having a new character cap at 50.
    If people can just switch characters in and out as they please then they will obviously do that instead of selecting ones they actually have use for and eventually be forced to delete the rest (like hoarding IGNs for example, which I am also guilty of).
    Might as well have a character cap of 50 times the amount of servers being merged then. Which would be absurd. Nobody needs that many character slots.
    As for the merged world names, as someone whose very forum and Discord identity is "A Kradian", I am obviously saddened that my world will be no more. But to be honest I'm more concerned about the possibility of losing my guild, alliance, buddy list, spouses, monster collection, legion, storage, cash storage, and whatever other "world-specific" features the people of EMS Kradia and Demethos lost when they became Luna.
    If they do it the same way MSEA did then I believe the only thing that would really have to change is guild names (like after a regular new alliance). Everything else would work the same way as character slots do, preserved but temporarily inaccessible.
    That said, we don't know how differently the services operate or what the specifics are for us yet. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though.
  • AKradianAKradian
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    edited May 2019
    HHG1 wrote: »
    AKradian wrote: »
    We all know that people take extended breaks from MapleStory, of their own free will or otherwise. I don't know why Nexon decided to only offer the special character interface for 6 months. They might change their minds later, if they see the number of accounts with over 50 characters remains high. It's not an urgent or irreversible decision.
    See, that was the argument I thought OP would have gone for, or was trying to convey, but he insisted it was a bad move because of discrimination instead.
    I think keeping the special menu for longer than 6 months kinda defeats the purpose of having a new character cap at 50.
    If people can just switch characters in and out as they please then they will obviously do that instead of selecting ones they actually have use for and eventually be forced to delete the rest (like hoarding IGNs for example, which I am also guilty of).
    Might as well have a character cap of 50 times the amount of servers being merged then. Which would be absurd. Nobody needs that many character slots.

    I don't think they can switch them in and out at will.
    SavageAce wrote:
    The 50 characters they choose will be displayed in the character selection screen and can be accessed normally, while their excess characters will be temporarily inaccessible. After these players remove some characters from their character selection screen, they will be able to use this newly added menu again in order to select characters again to replace the ones they removed.

    The way I understand this, you will only be able to access the first 50 you selected, until you delete some. And then you will be given a choice of which characters to see in their place.
    After 6 months, you will not be given that choice, and the characters that come into view (both initially and after a deletion) will be selected by the system.
    If they do it the same way MSEA did then I believe the only thing that would really have to change is guild names (like after a regular new alliance). Everything else would work the same way as character slots do, preserved but temporarily inaccessible.
    That said, we don't know how differently the services operate or what the specifics are for us yet. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though.

    MSEA was merging worlds that were already allied, and as a result a lot of the potential issues were defused with "it's already that way in the alliance."
    Since GMS is merging unallied worlds, it's not going to be that easy.
  • HHG1HHG1
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    edited May 2019
    AKradian wrote: »
    I don't think they can switch them in and out at will.
    SavageAce wrote:
    The 50 characters they choose will be displayed in the character selection screen and can be accessed normally, while their excess characters will be temporarily inaccessible. After these players remove some characters from their character selection screen, they will be able to use this newly added menu again in order to select characters again to replace the ones they removed.

    The way I understand this, you will only be able to access the first 50 you selected, until you delete some. And then you will be given a choice of which characters to see in their place.
    After 6 months, you will not be given that choice, and the characters that come into view (both initially and after a deletion) will be selected by the system.
    Ah so the selection is a one-time thing? Argument still stands that it wouldn't really be a necessary feature 6 months in, but I can see why people would want the 1-time selection per account.
    MSEA was merging worlds that were already allied, and as a result a lot of the potential issues were defused with "it's already that way in the alliance."
    Since GMS is merging unallied worlds, it's not going to be that easy.

    I think I mentioned this on reddit a while back but wouldn't it be just as easy as entering these worlds into an alliance before fully merging? The only thing that changes is still the overlapping guild names.